Apr062017

Windows 10 Creators Update, SDK and Tools Released for Early Adopters

Windows 10 Creators Update, build 15063 release on Wednesday, Microsoft is going into the detaills of getting your system updated and configured.

So, when the Windows Update is ready, you’ll receive a notification, or if interested you can pull the update manually by going to the software download site and select “Update Now.” Once the executable, runs, it’ll force update your system to Windows 10 Creators Update build 15063.

The release also includes Windows 10 Creators Update SDK, Visual Studio 2017 UWP Tooling and Windows Store has started accepting applications that target Windows 10 Creators Update. To submit your apps to Windows Store, there are two primary steps you’ll need to take:

Enhancements to the visual layer (effects, animations and transitions) and elevation of many effects to the XAML layer with improved controls that make the enhancements easy to bring to apps

Improvements to ink, including ink analysis and improved recognition, and an ink toolbar with new effects (tilt pencil) and tools (protractor for drawing curves and circles)

More powerful and flexible APIs for Surface Dial

Significant Bluetooth improvements with Bluetooth LE GATT Server, peripheral mode for easier discovery of Windows Devices, and support for loosely coupled Bluetooth devices (those low energy devices that do not have to be explicitly paired)

Better user engagement via notifications that can now be grouped by app, bind to data and contain in-line controls such as progress bars

Improvements to Desktop Bridge to make it easier than ever to bring Win32 apps to Windows 10 and the Windows Store

The ability to have seamless cross-device experiences with Project Rome and the recently released Android SDK for Project Rome.

Alongside, Microsoft is also getting ready Windows Insider Program to release new builds from its Development Branch, so it’s a good time for users to check their program settings, in case they want to receive more stable builds.

Windows Insiders who want to stay on the Windows 10 Creators Update should also update their settings.

Though, just like before, you won’t immediately see many big noticeable changes or new features in new builds release just yet, because, “the team is currently focusing on refinements to OneCore and refactoring some code and other engineering work for making OneCore optimally structured for teams to start checking in code,” says Dona Sarkar.

Those like to change from Development Branch to some other rng may go to Settings -> Update & security -> Windows Insider Program and then move to either ‘Slow or Release Preview rings for more stable builds.”

Additionally, those on Windows Insider, and want to now stay on Creators Update, should go to Settings -> Update & security -> Windows Insider Program and press the “Stop Insider Preview builds” button. A menu will pop up and you will need to choose “Keep giving me builds until the next Windows release”. This will keep you on the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Microsoft also updated the minimum hardware requirements for the Creators Update. With that TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 will now be “required for IoT Core in a future release”. Presumably, this would be the next feature update, which is codenamed Redstone 3. This requirement was implemented for PCs, tablets, and phones with the Anniversary Update.

The hardware requirements for IoT Core has some other changes as well—with section 5.5 notes that the OS supports an optional GPU (graphics processing unit).

In fact, the only requirements that have remained the same are for PCs. Windows phones won’t be supporting any new processors – including Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 821 and 835 chipsets – and they even dropped support for the low-end Snapdragon 208, which didn’t support LTE and offers a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 chip.

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it is providing more information to customers about privacy settings, privacy enhancements and the data it collects, as part of its commitment to transparency and customer privacy with Windows 10.

Customers will also be able to review and choose privacy settings with the Windows 10 Creators Update.

“With the Creators Update, we’ve taken significant steps forward to help ensure you have information to make informed choices and you are in control of the personalized experiences you choose with Windows 10,” writes Marisa Rogers.

Rogers added further, “Aside from sharing new information to inform your choices, our teams have also worked diligently since the Anniversary Update to re-assess what data is strictly necessary at the Basic level to keep Windows 10 devices up to date and secure. We looked closely at how we use this diagnostic data and strengthened our commitment to minimize data collection at the Basic level. As a result, we have reduced the number of events collected and reduced, by about half, the volume of data we collect at the Basic level.”

Later this month, Rogers said an update will bring voice data collected to the Microsoft privacy dashboard, so users will be able to “review the data we have which improves Cortana’s ability to naturally respond to your requests as your personal digital assistant.”

Additionally, “information about how Windows 10 is compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and how using Windows 10 and other Microsoft products will help enterprise customers with compliance in their environments will also be shared.”

Here’s what you can expect with this update.

Everyone have the opportunity to review each privacy settings that carries clearer descriptions and “Learn More” buttons for diving deeper into the information collected and how it’s used.

Windows 10 will now show a new notification to schedule Creators Update and choose privacy settings—just toggle to customize your choices. At any time, you can review and change settings and to find more details and links to Microsoft Privacy statement under Windows Settings ->Privacy.

Existing Windows 10 users upgrading to the Creators Update will see a privacy settings screen with the new options. The state of each toggle (on/off) will be dependent on your existing settings, rather than all being enabled or disabled by default. Here’s what that screen will look like will all of those settings set to ‘on’.

See the images below:

If you are settings up a new Windows 10 device or doing a clean install, the new privacy set up experience no longer allow to bypass privacy choices as all of those options will now be enabled by default. But, users will be able to to turn them on/off at any time. The “Get going fast” and “Customize settings” screens previosuly available will no more availabel now.

Windows 10 Mobile will now see key relevant privacy choices after installing the Creators Update. The key difference in mobile is the “Tailored experiences with diagnostic data” setting is automatically turned off for all customers and is not presented as an option on the privacy screen due to limitations of the mobile platform, Rogers explained.

Microsoft has also released Windows 10 Enterprise version 1703—a.k.a Windows 10 Creators Update. These release of “Windows 10, version 1703 is initially considered the Current Branch (CB) and will become Current Branch for Business (CBB) in about four months from today,” writes the team.

Also, available for download is the updated Windows Assessment and Development Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 10, version 1703, from the Hardware Dev Center.

Windows 10 version 1703 offers IT pros a variety of features and functionality, such as:

Windows Configuration Designer, formerly known as Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD), is now available in Windows Store. It includes several new wizards to make it easier to create provisioning packages for desktop devices, mobile devices, and kiosks—as well as the option to remove pre-installed software in both the desktop and kiosk wizards.

New PowerShell cmdlets enable you to automatically install provisioning packages created using Windows Configuration Designer.

MBR2GPTEXE, a new command-line tool that enables you to convert a disk from a Master Boot Record (MBR) to a GUID Partition Table (GPT) without modifying or deleting data on the disk, helpful in automating the conversion from BIOS to UEFI[i].

Windows Hello for Business, which replaces passwords with two-factor authentication, has been improved to support organizations that are restricted to using AD on-premises for authentication and can’t use cloud-based solutions like Azure AD.

New Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) capabilities, including the ability to create custom threat intelligence alerts, investigate a specific user account, and take immediate actions on a machine or file to contain a breach.

Enhancements to Windows Defender Antivirus (AV) (previously known as Windows Defender), including updates to how the Block at First Sight feature can be configured and the ability to specify the level of cloud protection.

Ability to customize Start and taskbar layout in Windows 10 Pro with Group Policy, and new support for customized taskbar policy deployed via MDM.

Ability to control which pages in the Settings app are visible to users using either MDM or Group Policy via the Settings/PageVisibilityList setting. Blocked pages will not be visible in the app and, if all pages in a category are blocked, the category will be hidden as well.

Support for mobile application management (MAM), including integration with Windows Information Protection, which provides individuals with access to business apps on their personal Windows devices while protecting company data.

Enhancements to Windows as a service such as: options to configure feature updates and quality updates in Windows Update for Business, ability to monitor installation progress of both quality and feature updates with Update Compliance, and express update support for Configuration Manager, in addition to current Express support for Windows Update, Windows Update for Business and WSUS.

Other features in version 1703 included are:

Registry Editor (REGEDT32.EXE) now has an address bar, keyboard shortcuts, and abbreviations, such as HKCU (for HKEY_CURRENT_USER) and HKLM (for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).

High-DPI scaling improvements coming in Windows 10 Creators Update. Desktop applications can be blurry or sized incorrectly when run on displays with high dots per inch (DPI) scales. Microsoft is addressing those issues with several improvements in the Windows 10 Creators Update.

The high-DPI improvements in the Creators Update include changes aimed at both desktop application developers and end users. For developers, Microsoft is incrementally adding automatic per-monitor DPI scaling to desktop user interface frameworks to make it easy to update desktop applications to handle dynamic DPI scaling.

Other changes will improve the end user experience for Windows in mixed-DPI environments. Those include the ability to override automatic DPI scaling, default per-monitor DPI scaling for some graphics device interface apps, and dynamic DPI scaling in Internet Explorer.

The following options are available for getting version 1703 today:

Windows 10, version 1703 is available for download today from the MSDN Subscriptions Center (for Visual Studio/MSDN subscribers).

If you have already deployed Windows 10, you can get the Windows 10, version 1703 update starting Tuesday, April 11th from Windows Update or Windows Update for Business.

If you have already deployed Windows 10 and use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and/or System Center Configuration Manager servicing plans, you can also get the Windows 10, version 1703 update on April 11th.

Deepak Gupta is a IT & Web Consultant. He is the founder and CEO of diTii.com & DIT Technologies, where he's engaged in providing Technology Consultancy, Design and Development of Desktop, Web and Mobile applications using various tools and softwares. Sign-up for the Email for daily updates. Google+ Profile.